Buffalo euthanized after rescue effort

March 12, 2013|By Amanda Marrazzo | Special to the Tribune

The muddy hole that Po-Key the American buffalo was stuck in Tuesday at Lords Park Zoo in Elgin. The 1,000-pound animal has to be euthanized after rescuers pulled her from the hole. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)

Workers used one backhoe to push and another to pull a 1,000 pound American buffalo named Po-Key from a muddy hole at Lords Park Zoo in Elgin on Tuesday, but a veterinarian later had to put the animal down.

“I can't leave her to suffer another night,” said veterinarian Bill Morrissey, who takes care of the animals in the zoo. He euthanized Po-Key at about 4:15 p.m.

Great efforts were made to save the buffalo. Park workers called the vet at about 7:30 a.m., and the rescue began about 9:30 a.m.

“They inched her little by little, tried not to choke her,” said Morrissey, of Farm Animal Veterinarian Service in Woodstock.

When Po-Key , believed to be between 20 and 25 years old, was pulled from the foot-and-a-half muddy hole, she could not stand on her feet, or pick her head up off of the ground. She didn’t have the strength to pick her body up to allow circulation in her legs, so workers used four bales of hay to prop her up.

She was given a “big dose” of cortisone to help her, Morrissey said. But by early Tuesday afternoon she was still laying down, propped up against hay bales.

She eventually hid her head in between them trying to hide from the other two bison that live at the zoo. They each kept approaching her, sniffing her, licking her, and nudging her head.

They appeared to be concerned for her well-being and trying to help, but Morrissey said they were only “messing with her ... picking on her.”

There were reports made to the city in recent days that Po-Key was laying down in several spots in the zoo and didn’t look well.

Kier Haefling grew up three houses away from the zoo, says he can see the bison from his front porch.

“It looked like it was really, really tired,” he said. “It looked kind of sick. It was really sad yesterday seeing her in the dirt, it was raining on her, it was really cold and she was shivering ... I wanted to bring her a blanket.”